gave the guard a small salute, then got on the elevator. He’d have to get the CPDA back from the front desk on his way out. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to pick it out of rubble if that was the case.
CALVIN JAMES LIKED Paris, a truly multicultural center that had accepted and nurtured some of the finest black American expatriates into global superstars on the music, writing and acting scenes. On these streets resided a history of great artists who’d come here in self-imposed exile rather than buckle under to an age of racism that did its best to snuff out their creativity simply because of the color of their skin. James often wondered how he would have dealt with those times, and knew that any chance a black doctor would have had would have been thin and as ghettoized as every other segment of American society back in those days.
James loved America; there would never be any doubt about that. He had bled for her even before he had been recruited to Phoenix Force. And part of his love stemmed from how America could heal, improve and right the wrongs of the past.
The infiltration of a country’s leadership by clever, predatory scum was not the country’s or the government’s fault. The greedy and corrupt would always find a way to positions of power, and nothing short of complete martial law and the revocation of liberty could ever quell such ambitions. As a soldier of freedom, he would never let that happen.
Here and now on the streets of Paris, the flight was not from injustice, but from those seeking to bring evildoers to justice. The target was Aasim Bezoar, a Syrian biochemist who had been traveling through Europe. Bezoar’s schooling had been in Moscow, back in the era of the Cold War, and he had been one of the top men in Syria’s chemical and biological weapons programming, helping to build an arsenal that would give Israel pause should they ever attempt reprisal for their interference in Lebanon. Bezoar’s machinations had been part of the reason for the cold peace between Syria and Israel, but they had also been part of other, more dangerous problems that had only been barely contained thanks to the efforts of law enforcement and espionage across the world.
One of James’s first missions with Phoenix Force had been an operation in Greece where hardline Soviets had invented an enzyme that would have destroyed the stomach lining of people it was exposed to, dooming them to malnutrition. That terrifying attack had been stopped cold, and James had cemented his position as one of the five pillars of Phoenix Force.
Bezoar had been involved in the research, but not the execution of the Proteus Enzyme, and as such, he had escaped the wrath of Stony Man Farm’s operatives.
Now Bezoar had popped up on the radar in Paris. His ties with the Syrian government had been dissolved for some reason. The Syrians had claimed he’d died a year ago, but here he was, alive and well.
James and his comrades hadn’t been the first ones to take notice of Bezoar. A team of operatives from Damascus had made the attempt to retrieve him. It was their corpses, floating in the Seine, that had alerted Interpol, and by extension, Stony Man, that the chemist was alive and in the City of Lights. When a supposedly dead biochemist attracted a force of assassins, Barbara Price knew Phoenix Force was meant to be involved.
David McCarter, the leader of Phoenix Force, walked beside James. A fox-faced man with hard, glinty eyes, McCarter was a British citizen, and more importantly, a veteran of Britain’s storied Special Air Service before being recruited to the Sensitive Operations Group. His mastery of counterterrorist tactics was second to none, backed up by a wild man’s energy disciplined by years of experience. Throwing in his knowledge of Arabic, German and French—as well as his ability to fly anything with wings or propellers—was the icing on a hardcase cake.
The members of Phoenix Force were picked because they could fight, but none of them was just pure brawn. Each of them knew at least three languages fluently, as well as possessing a gamut of knowledge ranging from deep sea diving, archaeology, structural engineering, medicine and chemistry.
Hundreds of lives were at risk, and Phoenix Force had the Syrian assassins to thank for it. Damascus was hardly a friend of the United States and the rest of the Western world, but when the Syrian government reacted to one of their own going rogue, the globe had to sit up and take notice.
“Anything, Cal?” McCarter asked.
James shook his head. “Still nothing. How much longer are we going to watch that hole in the wall?”
McCarter took a deep breath. James knew that before he’d been given leadership of the team, his impetuous and impulsive nature had him chomping at the bit to get into action. Anything that hinted of hesitation crawled under McCarter’s skin like a burr. Since his promotion, however, even the appearance sitting idly was misleading. The Briton’s mind was buzzing, a gleaming light shining behind his eyes indicating thoughts racing along as he plotted angles and strategies.
Being the boss didn’t make things easier, but it alleviated any boredom he used to have.
“Until we’re ready,” McCarter said.
James shook his head again. “A few years ago, I’d ask who the hell you are and what you’d done with the real David.”
McCarter looked at James and winked. “The real David’s having fun working out the probabilities of my plans a dozen times over, looking for every single outcome. Before, I had to twiddle my thumbs, waiting to do my thing. Now I’m rolling plans in my head to make sure all you little chickadees return home to roost, not just because you’re all my mates, but because Mama Hen Barb would turn me into a fryer if I fucked up.”
“I’m so glad that our friendship is more important than your fear of reprisals, David,” James said.
McCarter chuckled, then brought his radio to his lips. “Gary, luv. Still warm up there?”
“A Paris evening in November?” Gary Manning asked. “In Canada, this is T-shirt weather.”
“Any change of security?” McCarter returned.
“Same patrol patterns. Bezoar has some tightly wound people watching him, and they’re not fucking around,” Manning answered. “They haven’t noticed you two yet, but then, it takes me a minute to locate you.”
“Good news,” McCarter said. “T.J., how’re you doing?”
“Aside from the hairy eyeballs I caught from security, I’m peachy,” Hawkins told him. “They noticed me just walking on the sidewalk, so Bezoar has plenty of sharp eyes and ears on the scene.”
“A visit from Damascus woke them up, likely,” Rafael Encizo commented from his vantage point.
“Not this bunch,” Hawkins countered. “This wasn’t cockroach scrambling, this was lions watching a zebra. Not a nice feeling being the prey.”
“Just about satisfied, David?” Encizo asked.
“Almost,” McCarter responded.
James noticed a sudden perk of interest rise in the Phoenix Force commander. “Spot something?”
“A truck picking up trash,” McCarter said, nodding toward the vehicle. “Gary, how many guns are on it?”
They waited for Manning for a couple of moments, then the Canadian spoke up. “Five. How’d you guess?”
“I’ve done stakeouts in this area of town before,” McCarter answered. “Rubbish isn’t picked up on this day of the week, and not two haulers off a truck
